If one's goal is to maximize the value humanity creates, she should probably become an elementary school teacher. If one's goal is to make money, she should get an MBA or financial degree.
The former, to me, is significantly nobler.
Since that is obviously the worst of all worlds, it tells me that teachers do a good thing, but not the greatest thing.
However, without teachers, few things would get done as everyone would reinvent the wheel. This is also, while not the worst scenario, it is far from the best.
Thus, the best scenario seems to be that people should try to accomplish something, then go back and teach the next generation. The bonus is that these people will know how to get to the top.
However, people who are good at getting things done are not necessarily the best teachers, and for the people that are...
Perhaps, like we have today, those who are good at teaching and want to should teach, and those who want to produce should produce (and then later teach). The whole system relies on there being a good balance between the two. How to calculate the balance is very hard.
Also worth pointing out that this isn't necessarily true for secondary education - Universities are institutions which allow great teachers to both do great work and teach. I'd hypothesize that if the same were extended to other institutions, and also to younger students, much value would come of it.
As a side note, this approach made him richer, too.
"significantly nobler" is a means-nothing phrase. Nobility as a word is meaningless without backup. I would argue, to counter your point, that Steve Jobs has inspired more people to create beautiful, meaningful things than most teachers ever do. Teachers serve a purpose, but theirs is not the only noble trade in the world.
I come from a semi well off family on my father's side and have many well off friends. We all have either trust funds (family trusts) or our parents and grandparents just give us the money outright before they die or we get non-voting shares in our parents holding corporations that own 99% of the company or we get physical gold and silver before they pass.
The list goes on and on. The only people I have ever heard paying real inheritance tax were from the middle class. Rich enough to tax, poor enough to lack a good tax attorney.
There is no real way you can stop it. Even if you prevent parents from giving money to their children (!) then the rich can just turn it into gold chains and give them gifts of jewelry, or turn their wealth into priceless art and then give it to their children, or offshore bank accounts co-owned by father-son.
"Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it."
Besides, wealth is often demonized by egalitarians. They see its distribution as a random function of the universe, and not as a function of the productive efforts of the earners. For one person to have more money than another is considered unjust. We hear so much about how the wealthy are evil, it is nice for a different point of view to be aired every now and then.
>"The saddest thing I've ever heard was from a friend who told me that his main goal in life was making money"
It would not be so sad if he said that his goal was producing something of value, which often results in making money. As Ayn says, "Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values".
> "Are people impressed by that article because of the sonorous prose?"
Yes, I do think the prose is quite nice. When Ayn hits a good stride, she reaches a style that is all her own. I think her talents are often under-appreciated because the literary establishment is very much opposed to her political views.